Lauren had been spacey and distracted since returning to her seat. She'd ignored Ally's questioning glances, and later, the questions themselves. She didn't want to admit to her assistant – to herself, really – that she'd stalked the artist, and then offered her a job for no other reason than to be closer to her.
The sound of clapping broke through her thoughts, and Lauren regarded the stage where another actor had taken the spotlight. She watched his performance for a full minute before losing interest. So far, no one had caught her eye. Ella Peters had left half an hour into the auditions, proclaiming it a waste of her time. Lauren might have been tempted to follow suit were it not for the fact that Dinah's audition was coming up.
There was another round of clapping, and Lauren glanced down to see a familiar brown head take the stage. Dinah Jane Hansen introduced herself and the two contrasting monologues she'd prepared. After a short pause, she began.
Lauren hadn't been expecting much. All performances up to that point had been adequate, perhaps excellent at times, but certainly not what they were searching for. Dinah, on the other hand, was something else entirely.
As Lauren sat in her balcony seat, watching Dinah Jane Hansen, she found herself shaking her head. What were the odds that Dinah would be this talented?
"What do you think?" Normani asked, when Dinah had finished and the thunderous clapping had died down.
"She's worth calling in."
"Agreed." Normani wrote something down in the notebook she carried. "I also liked that other girl; the one with the hot pink scarf and the funky glasses."
Lauren must have been spaced out during that one. "Uh, yeah. She was good."
"Great. I feel good about this."
Lauren smiled at the director's optimism, but felt a pain in the pit of her stomach. Her life, which up until this point had felt simple and straightforward, was suddenly spinning out of her control. Even if she had never emailed Camila, she would still be sitting there in that theater, agreeing to grant Dinah Jane Hansen an audition.
"Maybe it's fate," Ally whispered, as if reading her thoughts.
Lauren ignored the comment. Ignoring things seemed, for the moment, like the best thing to do.
***************************************************************
"I still think we should go out and celebrate or something," said Dinah, as she tossed her keys onto the kitchen table. "I mean, just the fact that she suggested – hell, just the fact that she came up to you. When does shit like that happen? Never. Shit like that doesn't happen. We should celebrate the anomaly that is your encounter with Lauren Jauregui."
Camila sat down on the couch and kicked off her shoes. "If we're to celebrate anything, it's your totally kick-ass audition today. When did you get that good?"
"I've always been that good," Dinah said, without an ounce of modesty. She dropped down on the couch beside Camila and popped open a can of soda. "Unfortunately, that doesn't mean crap. Lauren and her posse will probably cast that guy... the one that was drooling during his monologue."
"It was some pretty impressive drool."
"Or how about that girl, the one who clicked her tongue after every other word. It was like, 'Today tsk I went to the bank tsk and it was great tsk.' What was that?"
Camila laughed, both at the memory, and at Dinah's rendition. "There were quite a few disasters up on that stage."
"Thank God, too, 'cause it would've been so boring with no one to make fun of. Anyway, back to this whole Lauren Jauregui business... I feel like we should be screaming and jumping around or something. Just sitting here feels wrong; like it's no big deal that a major celebrity wants to hang your artwork in her apartment. I don't know how you can act so blasé about the whole thing."
